Trends
Interview with Dr Nitinder Mohan: Edge, satellites, and the reality behind Internet performance
Dr Nitinder Mohan reveals internet performance gaps, challenging assumptions about edge computing, satellites, and protocol deployment.
Headline
Dr Nitinder Mohan reveals internet performance gaps, challenging assumptions about edge computing, satellites, and protocol deployment.
Context
As edge computing and satellite connectivity reshape the Internet, researchers like Dr Nitinder Mohan are rethinking how networks perform in the real world. Dr Mohan is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science at Delft University of Technology . He leads the Systems and Protocols for Edge-Enabled Internet (SPEAR) lab, where his research focuses on edge computing, next-generation network protocols, Internet-wide measurements, and the deployment and management of critical applications. With a background in both academic and applied systems research, Dr Mohan’s work bridges the gap between academic research and the operational realities of today’s and tomorrow’s Internet. Mohan: I lead the Systems and Protocols for Edge-Enabled Internet lab, or SPEAR lab. Although the lab itself is relatively new, the research behind it has been ongoing since I completed my PhD. Our work sits at the intersection of edge computing systems and large-scale internet measurements.
Evidence
Pending intelligence enrichment.
Analysis
The core motivation behind the lab is to understand and address how traditional cloud computing and internet technologies are beginning to converge. While this convergence is happening in concept, we still observe a clear divide between the communities working on cloud systems and those focused on the internet infrastructure. This gap becomes more apparent as we see computing resources moving closer to end users. In recent years, compute servers are no longer just located in distant data centres. Increasingly, they are being deployed within ISP networks, right at the edge. At the same time, the internet itself is evolving. It is no longer simply a tool for connecting users to remote servers. It now includes intermediate elements, such as middleboxes, that can perform computations while data is still in transit. This evolution becomes especially important when we think about new applications like cloud gaming, augmented reality and virtual reality. These applications require extremely low latency and can no longer rely on traditional models where all processing happens at a central location. Instead, they demand that computation happens much closer to the user, possibly even along the network path itself. This shift creates a clear challenge. There is a growing mismatch between the demands of modern applications and the capabilities of the current network infrastructure. At SPEAR lab, we address this by building real systems that support edge computing, with a particular focus on orchestration. Alongside this, we conduct internet-wide measurements to better understand how the network behaves in practice. We study transport protocol performance, ISP performance and application performance at scale. It’s essentially a cycle — we build systems, measure their performance, and then improve those systems based on what we learn.
Key Points
- SPEAR Lab builds real systems and conducts measurements to address performance gaps in edge computing and modern internet protocols.
- LEO satellite networks suffer from poor content delivery when lacking local ground infrastructure and integrated DNS/CDN coordination.
- Internet measurements reveal that real-world deployment of protocols like Multipath TCP remains limited due to middlebox incompatibility.
Actions
Pending intelligence enrichment.
